Pakistan Election 2018 results: Imran Khan declares victory, opponents allege rigging
PTI has swept the polls in the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province
LAHORE (Dunya News) – As Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) maintained a commanding lead with more than half the votes counted from Wednesday s election, party chairman Imran Khan in his address to the nation declared victory in the general election marred by allegations of "blatant" rigging by rival parties.
He said: “I will tell you what sort of Pakistan I want to see: my inspiration is the state that the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) created in Madina,” adding that he wanted to create an Islamic welfare state. “A state in which almost half the population is below the poverty line, or above the poverty line, how can we say this is the great dream that was Pakistan. All our policies will be to uplift poor classes.”
Read Also: Pakistan General Election Results 2018 LIVE updates: PTI leads, PML-N cries foul
The PTI chairman said that he wanted all of Pakistan to unite. He was forgetting all attacks, including personal ones, that his opponents had launched against him. “My government will not take vengeful action against anyone.”
Khan promised that he will protect the tax money of people and will reduce his expenses. “I will ashamed to live in such a huge prime minister’s house. We will decide what to do with the prime minister’s house, we will turn it into some sort of educational institute. We will use all governor houses for the public.”
Also Read: Imran Khan addresses nation here
He said he would emulate China’s poverty alleviation and anti-corruption policies and use the China Pakistan Economic Corridor to bring more money into Pakistan.
Read Also: My sons father is Pakistan s next PM, Jemima on Imran s victory
On foreign policy Khan said that we have a big foreign policy challenge. If there is a country that needs stability, peace, it is Pakistan, he said, adding that better relations with neighbors would mean Pakistan can concentrate on its own development.
Know More: Elections 2018: PML-N decides to sit on opposition benches in NA
Talking about India, the PTI chairman lamented his portrayal by Indian media as a “Bollywood villain” in the run up to the election. “I am that person who believes that if we want to reduce poverty in the subcontinent, we need better trade ties.” He said Pakistan and India needed to sit at the table to solve the Kashmir issue and end “blame games.”
He said the people of Afghanistan had borne great pains, and it would be the effort of his government to “bring peace to Afghanistan” and create a situation where they two countries could have open borders.
Read Also: Elections 2018: Political bigwigs face major upsets
PTI has swept the polls in the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
Late Wednesday, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) president Shehbaz Sharif rejected the results because of "outright rigging", and vowed it would use "all political and legal options for redressal of these glaring excesses".
"What they have done has pushed Pakistan back 30 years... People will not bear it," the party s leader Shahbaz Sharif, brother of jailed former premier Nawaz Sharif, said.
He went on to say that rigging had inflicted massive blow to Pakistan’s democratic system and stated that Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) had utterly failed in carrying out transparent elections.
Know More: China reiterates support for new govt in Pakistan
"PML-N’s polling agent was pushed out of the polling station in DG Khan whereas situation of the incident is available. Today’s incidents have pushed Pakistan 30 years back," he added.
Later, Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman while rejecting the election results said that he would be hosting an All Parties’ Conference (APC) to discuss alleged rigging in elections.
Fazl said that he had discussed the situation with leaders of political parties including PML-N president Shehbaz Sharif.
Also Read: ECP invites investigation into rigging allegations
Other major parties also alleged fraud, including the Pakistan Peoples’ Party (PPP), whose chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari echoed the PML-N s claim that party representatives were barred from monitoring the count.
At least one party -- Tehreek-e-Labaik Pakistan (TLP), which blockaded the capital Islamabad for weeks last year over blasphemy -- has already announced it is planning protests.
On the other hand, the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) dismissed allegations of manipulation, blaming the delay on glitches in new, untested counting software.
Read More: Election 2018 results: Imran clean sweeps all five constituencies
"These elections were 100 percent fair and transparent," said Chief Election Commissioner Sardar Muhammad Raza early Thursday as the outcry grew.
A PTI win would also represent an end to decades of rotating leadership between the PPP and PML-N that was punctuated by periods of military rule. Khan, who captained Pakistan to their World Cup cricket victory in 1992, campaigned on promises to end widespread graft while building an "Islamic welfare state".
Meanwhile on Wednesday night, supporters of Khan s PTI kicked off early celebrations in different cities, with the centrist party leading in the projected, preliminary tally announced on local television channels.
Know More: 2018 Pakistan election results: List of winning candidates of PTI
Khan’s supporters hailed his achievement as the dawn of a new age, symbolizing the end of politics-as-usual and the perceived elitism, cronyism and corruption associated with Shehbaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PMLN) and Bilawal Bhutto Zardari’s Pakistan People’s party (PPP).
On Thursday, Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) announced unofficial results of 696 national and provincial assemblies’ constituencies. According to an official of ECP, the commission has so far received results of 204 National Assembly seats while it also got results of 491 provincial assemblies’ seats of the four provinces.
Talking to media, Secretary ECP Babar Yaqoob said that breakdown of result transmitting system was the main reason behind delay in the announcement of results.
He said that the turnout remained 55% in his personal opinion. He said that there were no complaints received by the commission regarding any poll rigging while most of the complaints were related to procedural and technical issues.
The incumbent PML-N has decided to play active role in the center against Imran Khan-led federal government as polls’ results indicate that Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) is heading towards simple majority.
The huddle of PML-N’s central executive committee was held in Lahore. Shehbaz Sharif presided over the session.
The PML-N’s top brass—during meeting—decided to sit on the opposition benches in the National Assembly (NA). As far as alleged rigging is concerned in the elections, PML-N has decided to unearth concrete evidence in this regard.
Read More: Imran Khan s victory speech, India and Indian media
On Wednesday, millions of Pakistanis voted to elect a new government and prime minister in a peaceful elections held in free, fair and transparent manner.
Around 800,000 police and military forces were stationed at more than 85,000 polling stations across the country as the voting took place.
Wednesday s election was only the second democratic transition of power in Pakistan s 70-year coup-studded history.
Pakistan is a country of approximately 207 million people, out of which the number of registered voters are about 106 million. The voting for the Pakistan election, which took place between 8:00 am local time (8:30 am IST) and 6:00 pm (6:30 pm IST), saw more than 3,000 candidates contesting for 272 general seats of the National Assembly, while some 8,000 candidates ran for 577 general seats of the four provincial assemblies - Punjab, Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and Balochistan.
The three key parties contesting were former prime minister Nawaz Sharif s Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), and former (late) prime minister Benazir Bhutto s party Pakistan Peoples’ Party (PPP), which is being headed by her son Bilawal Bhutto Zardari.
To form a majority government outright, the PTI would need to snatch 137 seats.
